At one end, Kim Mulkey and her Lady Tigers are lighting up the new season, dropping 100 points like it’s nothing and setting an NCAA record with eight straight games over the 100-point mark. And just when Baton Rouge thought it couldn’t get any better, the football team found its Brian Kelly replacement. After weeks of the “will he or won’t he?” dance with Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin told his team on Sunday morning that he’s taking the LSU job. One person who didn’t like the move at all? Rick Pitino.

“I’m not knocking football, but there’s something wrong with their calendar. I’m at SJU and we are potentially a one seed and can win a National Championship this year, and I leave in March??? What’s going on here?” Rick Pitino said on X, calling for changes to the college basketball calendar. He believes Kiffin should’ve never been allowed to make the move at this point in the season in the first place.

For those who may not know, Lane Kiffin was the biggest name in the college football market — the top target for any program hunting for a new head coach. Both Florida and LSU had high-profile openings, and Kiffin was the priority for each of them. Kim Mulkey even joked at one point that he was headed to Florida. But in the end, it’s LSU that landed him. After six years of turning Ole Miss from an underachieving program into a real contender, Kiffin is now set to call Baton Rouge his home.

But Rick Pitino does have a point. Despite leading Ole Miss to an 11–1 regular season and putting them in a near-certain spot in the College Football Playoff, Kiffin won’t be with the Rebels for their postseason run. In his statement, he said he wanted to coach the team through the end of the year, but that was quickly dismissed by everyone. How could Kiffin chase a championship with Ole Miss while already planning LSU’s roster and future for 2026?

Former LSU coach and seven-time national champion Nick Saban has also joined Rick Pitino in calling for changes to the college football calendar. He urged college athletics to adopt an NFL-style timeline for coaching moves. “We need to take a better approach to the business aspect of what we do in college athletics. In the NFL, you cannot leave your team until you finish playing,” Saban said on ESPN’s College GameDay. “You can’t talk to another coach in the regular season. There’s a defined time you can talk to them if they’re in the playoffs. That’s the way it should be. And we should match the academic calendar with the football calendar.”

At the end of the day, Kiffin leaving before coaching Ole Miss in the program’s first-ever College Football Playoff run shows exactly why these situations shouldn’t happen. As Kiffin boarded the plane to Baton Rouge, hundreds of Ole Miss fans gathered at the University–Oxford Airport, not to celebrate him, but to boo the man who helped make this miracle run possible. And now, instead of focusing on the postseason, Ole Miss suddenly has to search for a new head coach, something that should’ve been the last thing on their plate at this stage of the year.

Moving on, Rick Pitino himself has faced some criticism lately because of how this season has started for his team.

Rick Pitino Voices Frustration Over St John’s Defensive Struggles

Rick Pitino’s side entered the season with massive expectations, ranked No. 5 in the AP Preseason Poll — the highest in program history. The Red Storm brought in the No. 1 transfer class in the nation, per 247Sports, and built a roster around Big East Preseason Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor with additions like Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins, Joson Sanon, Dillon Mitchell, and Oziyah Sellers. On paper, it looked like a powerhouse. But so far, the results just haven’t matched the hype for the Johnnies.

The Red Storm are off to a 4–3 start and have dropped all of their ranked matchups so far, and Pitino hasn’t been shy about his frustration with the team’s defense. “This is a very average defensive team,” he said after the 85–74 loss to Auburn. “They are not locked in like last year. They’re new to each other and they’re going to get it or they’re going to continue losing. It’s a matter of wanting to get it, wanting to be a great defensive team. And if they do, they’ll get it. If not, they won’t. They’ll have a long season.”

Yes, there were 11 new faces added to the roster, so building chemistry was always going to take time. But giving up an average of 17.2 offensive rebounds per game against power-conference opponents is simply not acceptable for a team coached by someone of Rick Pitino’s calibre. If the Red Storm want to top last season’s success, Pitino will hope things get better before the conference play begins.